Is It What You Dreamed Of?

Starting your own practice is really exciting.  The freedom to work with people you love. 

Doing work that your clients find valuable.  Working hours to suit you.  Being able to go to sports days and school shows.

Is that really your reality, though?

Has your practice become a massive millstone around your neck? 

Do your clients drive you mad, but you struggled so hard to get them that you smile through gritted teeth?

Far from getting more time to do what you love you've become a hamster on a non stop wheel of payroll, VAT returns and chasing clients for that invoice you've spent months asking them for?

You're struggling to earn a decent living without working evenings and weekends, seeing your family less than when you had a full time job?

You're not alone.  We've all been there. I've been there, but there is a better way to do it.

I started my bookkeeping practice in 2009 with two children under 2 and no practical bookkeeping experience.  

I struggled to get clients, couldn't make ends meet with what I was charging, and found myself working for people I didn't really enjoy.  I felt trapped.

What should have been an amazing experience was making me miserable.

I felt like a total failure.

Sitting in my office one day it just hit me like a ton of bricks.  If I was going to continue like this I'd be better going back to a full time job.  It was make or break time. 

I realised that I hated VAT returns and big limited companies.  I loved tiny businesses.

In a moment of, what felt like, madness I sacked all of my big clients.  These were the people who were making me feel unhappy.   

I rebuilt my business around the people that I loved working with.

I designed new adverts to attract them.  I put these adverts in the places that the people I wanted to work with would see them.  

I developed new systems to make their bookkeeping flow like a dream.  I redesigned my prices.

With this one, crazy, move I fell in love with my business again.  I cast aside the smell of desperation that had hung around me from day one, when I wanted a client.... any client. 

Not only did I start to love what I was doing I was making more money than I had before.

It seems strange, but it's true

The more I focused, the more successful I was becoming.  It seems strange that I didn't put the two together earlier, but I was just trying to work harder and harder. 

I spent so much time working in my business that I didn't have the time to step back and see the bigger picture.

Looking around the profession, I could see that there were loads of bookkeeping practices making the same mistakes that I had. 

Working harder and harder but doing totally the wrong things.  Trying to attract clients, any clients, rather than being focused.

The Bookkeepers Alliance is about helping you to focus

When I started my business there was no support to help me to do it properly. 

My professional body were great at helping me with the technical aspects of bookkeeping. 

No one was there to help me with the business.  That's the reason I was in the hole.  I didn't know what I was doing was wrong. 

To me, it looked like the same thing that everyone else was doing and it seemed to be working for them.  It must have been me.

I've heard this same story from so many bookkeepers over the years.  It wasn't me and it isn't you. 

It's the system that we think we need to follow to build a bookkeeping practice that wasn't working. 

I found a different way to do it, and that's the way that The Bookkeepers Alliance will support you in. 

We'll be your guide.  Your sounding board.  There to hold your hand.  Help you to focus on the business and move a step closer to your dream.